The Boston Globe Spotlights North Shore Innoventures

Beverly incubator grows life science, clean tech start-ups

By Kathy McCabe

Globe Staff / December 27, 2012

Martha Farmer and Deborah Moshinsky in the lab of Cell Assay Innovations, one of the firms aided by North Shore InnoVentures.

BEVERLY — In 2008, when the economy plunged into recession, North Shore InnoVentures launched a business technology incubator to stimulate growth in the emerging life sciences and clean technology sectors.

It was a risky move. Biotech and clean energy firms require big dollars and brain capital. Banks are reluctant to lend ­money to start-ups without a proven track record of sales. With biotech incubators popping up in Boston and Cambridge, competition was intense to lure enterprising scientists and engineers.

But leaders of the North Shore Technology Council, which created the nonprofit incubator, thought the region had more to lose if it did not try to catch the Bay State’s tech wave.

“We had to be proactive,” said Martha Farmer, a founder and chief executive of InnoVentures, located at the Cummings Center in Beverly. “We didn’t have any idea how well we’d do. We thought if we created 50 local jobs, we’d be quite successful.”